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The Cradle-to-Grave of the Energy World

"I think it is an absolute no-brainer that we should look at a cradle-to-grave uranium industry," Professor Plimer said at a uranium conference in Adelaide yesterday.

"Where we mine it, we convert it into yellowcake, we create the fuel rods, we lease these fuel rods to the major Western countries that are wanting to use nuclear power.

"We take the fuel rods back, we clean them up and we dispose of the waste.

"That would make South Australia the Saudi Arabia of the energy world."

Although this is coming from an academic, expect a good deal of clamoring for position in the near future as the nuclear renaissance really gets going. But does South Australia really want to be the new Saudi Arabia... ?

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While it makes a lot of sense for South Australia to pursue nuclear energy given that it has negligible supplies of coal and natural gas, and an abundance of land that has already been contaminated (British/Australian nuclear tests in the 1950s), such a scenario is unlikely until there is consensus in South Australia and Australia more widely that nuclear power is a good thing. As long as the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has the influence it does, there will be no consensus on utilizing uranium for energy within Australia. The CFMEU doesn't mind its metal ores miners digging up uranium, they just don't want their coal miners put out of work. Jobs for the boys don't you know.

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